THE GIFT
I was in the middle of a lake again, this time heavy with mist. I glide slowly across it in a small boat. Old wood and sail. When out of the mist he comes. It is my father, Zeus-like, a warrior of an ancient line. He was the first born of his brood. I am the first of mine. He climbs aboard. It is your turn, he tells me. The cracks in the timeline have appeared, hearts and minds are ready. You can be effective. Then he pulls out a sword. Long and mean. I had never seen it, but had guessed of its existence. This is yours now. I stare at the menace. Dried blood of the ages, encrusted. I take it, the weight feels like death, an albatross around my neck.
I do not want to wield this, even though I know I can.
I look at the long sheath. I run my hand down it. Smooth and boring in its two brutal dimensions. What if… Then I move my hand along it, sideways. The sword stretches, widening. You cannot fight with a fatter sword, my father cautions. So I nod and continue to stretch the steel, but not sideways, no, like a circle around the hilt, as if fanning the steel like a daisy. My father steps back, puzzled. When I am done, it looks like a sword flower. Each petal a shock of steel. Ah, a shield. Interesting choice. But I am not done. The steel melts and merges and coerces into a new shape. The shield bends in on itself. And before us, my father now growing frustrated, is a bowl. Large, metal but light. What on earth will you do with this? he demands. You were given a gift to lead us and you have defiled it, turned it into a common artifact?! If he could have stormed away, he would have.
Old enough to know his temper, I am not ruffled. I flip the bowl over and stand on it, surveying the lake. Head above the mist. A new perspective. I sing a note, it carries clear across the lake. I shrug. He considers. Then the rain starts. I hop off and flip the bowl around and start catching the rain. You look thirsty father, a long journey you’ve had. Offering him the water from the bowl, I tip it towards his face and he takes a sip. Grateful. I didn’t know I was thirsty, thank you. The rain grows in drops and now we are using it to scoop water out of the boat and push us like an oar as the wind has snapped our sail. The lightening flashes. We arrive on the shore, using the bowl to help us climb up on a rock as we are both tired now. We cover ourselves with the bowl, expanded in size from its use, for shelter from the rain. I didn’t expect such quality time with you, my father says. I laugh. Nature can be a fickle beast. You see her more clearly than I do, he muses. Then the sun makes a run from behind the cloud. She is the ultimate teacher, I reason. Of things to come, of truth and fears. She gives us gifts of nourishment and knowledge that I can now share with more ease. I look at the bowl, imagining it filled to the brim.
I accept your gift, father, thank you. But it will be shared, no longer passed to the next in line, for it will become too vast for just my hands and is meant for all.
The rain stops and I take the bowl, the angled edge, into the dirt. Scooping up chunks of earth revealing worms and mycelium. Nature is already connected. Invisible beneath our world. There is nothing linear, pointy about existence. We are orbits and waves and spirals. I think of the shape of the universe. A spiral made solid. Spinning forth into solid mass. The edges curved up. Our skull inverted.
I turn to my father and smile. You used your sword well, because you were given no choice. His chest softens, as pain and history escapes his cells. I flip the bowl over once more and place it on the earth, stepping up and inviting my father to stand with me, to see our way home.
